Speakeasy Dead: a P.G. Wodehouse-Inspired Romantic Zombie Comedy (Hellfire Universe Historicals) Read online

  “That’s what I came to tell you.” The genie pouted. “If you’ll give me a chance.” She stared sulkily at her painted shoes.

  We waited. “Well?”

  “Well.” Ruth took a moment to fuss over her dress. She fluffed her hair, straightened her shoulders, and then looked up with round and innocent eyes.

  “He’s in the basement,” she said. “Eating the man who sweeps your floors.”

  VI: Don’t Advertise Your Man

  That which does not kill us, very often kills someone else.

  —The Girl’s Guide to Demons

  Clara:

  FIRST, I WANT TO make it perfectly clear Beau Beauregard did not kill Mr. Vargas. We found the janitor at the bottom of the spiral staircase with the opera cape he always wore tangled around his legs and a half-empty bottle of Priscilla’s apple brandy in one hand, and it was obvious he’d tripped and fallen down the rickety wooden stairs, cracking his own skull open on the basement landing.

  And Beau wasn’t eating the man. Only his brains! And only the part that had already spilled onto the floor.

  “Poor Mr. Vargas.” I squinted up past Ruth and Bernie into the bar. There’s a deterrent spell on the Fellowship’s front and back stairs that keeps unescorted strangers from wandering off the first floor. But that wouldn’t affect Priscilla.

  “Is that…?” Bernie asked faintly. “Is he?”

  “Dead as a doornail,” Ruth agreed.

  Beau scraped his hand along the stone floor. He licked his palm and then shoved his fingers between a torn flap of scalp and broken bone and pulled out a steaming chunk of brains.

  My cousin moaned. An instant later, he somersaulted past me down the steps. Luckily, he had a nice fresh corpse to faint on instead of the floor.

  Ruth dragged Bernie off of the janitor and wedged him under the wooden staircase. The basement landing was small, with one door leading to the coven, the secret door to Priscilla’s lab, and a dumbwaiter that could hoist barrels up to the bar.

  Beau chewed delicately and then thrust his hand inside Mr. Vargas’ head for another helping. He looked so happy; I didn’t have the heart to stop him.

  Ruth wafted smelling salts beneath my cousin’s nose.

  “Not guilty!” He sat up fast, cracking his head on the underside of the stairs. “I plead the fifth!”

  “No one’s going to miss the poor guy,” I mused. “That is, no family.” Mr. Vargas was a Hungarian refugee. He’d lost his wife and children during the war. “No one will notice he’s gone except Priscilla, who” —will probably call off the dance contest and make me lose my bet with Hans— “I think it’s best not to disturb.”

  Bernie meeped in agreement.

  “Can you dispose of the body?” I asked Ruth. “Secretly?”

  Beau swallowed another mouthful. He picked up Mr. Vargas’ bottle and washed brains down with apple brandy.

  “I could eat him,” the genie offered.

  My cousin meeped again.

  “That is, what’s left after your zombie’s done. But we’d have to chop him into pieces. And I gotta warn you, mutilating human corpses is bad karma.”

  “Bad karma.” I bit my lip. Bad karma for me, since Ruth was under my command.

  Karma’s a sort of supernatural account book, according to the Girl’s Guide to Demons. It measures good vs. evil for creatures like zombies, genies, demons, and the human warlocks who make deals with them. If I lost too much karma, Hans might end up owning my soul. Then I’d become a genie slave, like Ruth, after I died.

  Besides, poor Mr. Vargas deserved better treatment.

  “No mutilating,” I said, trying to think. “Wait.” My best friend’s family owned a funeral parlor. She’d even promised me free funerals for life. “We’ll stash him in the icehouse behind Umbridge Emporium. They’re closed for a big party at the Hollywood Grand.” Luella Umbridge had talked of nothing else for weeks. “I’ll let Luella know. And then later, after it’s dark, we’ll get the body and give him a proper burial.”

  “There must be sixty or seventy people upstairs.” Bernie objected. “How are you going to get a corpse out of the Fellowship building?”

  I opened the dumbwaiter and peered inside. Mr. Vargas would fit, all right, but then he’d just wind up inside the bar.

  “I know.” I snapped my fingers. “We’ll use the coal chute.”

  My cousin stared.

  “It worked for us last night. It’s still unlocked. Come on!”

  Ruth and I hauled Bernie to his feet. His bungalow was just six blocks away. “Run home and get your car and some old blankets.” I shoved him onto the bottom step. “Meet us out back in a few minutes.”

  He climbed slowly, shaking his head.

  “Hurry!”

  Bernie moved faster.

  “Act casual!”

  He took the last steps at a run.

  “And whatever else,” I yelled as Bernie reached the top, “don’t tell Priscilla!”

  My cousin’s outline vanished. It was replaced immediately by a larger, darker, and much bossier one.

  You know how people say that naming something makes it appear? That’s applesauce. But if something appears right as you’re naming it, you really get its attention.

  “Don’t tell Priscilla” —my half-sister’s voice boomed— “what?”

  “The light!” I cried.

  Ruth yanked the chain plunging the basement into shadow. I dashed up stairs, two at a time, and rammed my shoulder into Priscilla, coming down.

  “Umph.” My hand whipped out and caught her eyeglasses as they fell. A trick, perfected in girlhood, that cut her spying-distance in half. “Sorry!”

  Dim light shone from the bar. I hid the glasses behind my back.

  “The light b-bulb,” I lied. “The bulb went out. Bernie’s fetching a new one.”

  “But what shouldn’t he tell me?” Priscilla marched downward, sweeping me ahead. Something rustled below us in the darkness.

  My sister squinted past the railing.

  “He shouldn’t t-tell you,” I stammered, “to come down here. Because if Bernie did tell you. To come. When there’s no light. You might get hurt.”

  “What nonsense.”

  We’d nearly reached the bottom. I grabbed the railing and braced my feet.

  My sister forged around me like an iceberg passing the Titanic. Lead-lined boots rapped on the granite floor.

  “Wait. I can explain!”

  The light-chain clicked. Nothing happened.

  “Ah hah!” Priscilla’s cry of triumph covered a soft scraping noise. “I have you now!” The stairwell light flashed on.

  We were alone. I sat down hard on the stairs. No Beau, no Ruthie, no Mr. Vargas. Not even a trace of brains.

  “The bulb was loose, you foolish girl. It only needed—for heaven’s sake, what is the matter?” Priscilla caught me as I swayed.

  “N-nothing.” The door to Priscilla’s lab was open. I pinched myself through my crepe dress. “Thank you.”

  “Well, since you’re here, come help—why is my lab unlocked?”

  “I was…just going in.” I dove forward and grabbed the sliding door. “That is, we were. Bernie and me. To get more brandy.”

  Priscilla brushed me aside.

  “The bottled brandy,” I yelled. “You know. From crates stacked near the back wall by the coal room door.”

  Priscilla turned to face me. Behind her, two figures rose in darkness, hefted a body between them, scurried sideways, and ducked for cover behind a copper still.

  Priscilla frowned. “I know where we keep the brandy.”

  “Of course you do,” I said. “Sorry, sorry. I guess I’ve got the jitters.” The figures popped up again and scuttled out of sight. “You know. On account of the contest.”

  “Because of the contest,” Priscilla corrected. “And you should have jitters. This weekend represents a dramatic increase in your responsibilities.” She held out her hand, palm up. “Eyeglasses?”


  I stalled, pretending to search the floor, and then passed the glasses over. She slipped them into her skirt pocket and entered the lab, stopping to light a gas lamp by the door. Priscilla’s lab is not electrified. She claims the emanations curdle the gin.

  The door slid shut, muffling the music upstairs. Something rustled at the back of the lab.

  Priscilla pulled an apron over her dress. “Come help me, child.”

  I followed obediently from still to still, taking temperatures, adjusting clamps. Every few seconds, the sound of clinking bottles or scraping boxes carried faintly from the direction of the coal room. Fortunately, two decades of alchemy explosions have all but ruined my half-sister’s hearing.

  “I’ve been meaning to speak to you, Clara.” She turned a dial and vented steam out of a narrow pipe. “About this new hotel.”

  “The Hollywood Grand? It’s pretty swell, isn’t it? But once I’m done rebuilding our bar….” It would be fabulous: chrome curves, black and white tile, glass counters atop a slash of neon light. The Grand might be a golden French symphony of smoke and glass. But we’d be slim and lean and modern. We’d be jazz. “I just know we’ll get customers.”

  “That’s not the issue. Hold this.” She lit a table lamp, opened a highboy cabinet and passed me a stack of tins, each labeled, I knew, with something completely different from what it actually contained.

  I carried the tins to the big worktable in the center of the room.

  Wood creaked loudly somewhere nearby.

  “Do you realize,” Priscilla asked, “the Hollywood Grand is doing business with gangsters?” She dumped ingredients into a large mortar and began crushing.

  I breathed in juniper and anise. “Yes, ma’am. I figured that out.”

  “Real gangsters. Chicago gangsters, not local bootleggers.”

  I considered telling her about Stoneface and promptly quashed the idea. The safest policy where my half-sisters are concerned has always been volunteer nothing.

  Bottles rattled. Whispering voices rose and fell. Voices? Who was Ruth talking to? I spun one of the tins nervously between my hands.

  Priscilla added more herbs to her mixture. “I fear the Treasury Department may send agents to Falstaff.”

  “So what?” I shrugged. “Everyone knows Prohies are goons.”

  “And that those agents,” Priscilla said, pounding her pestle, “will not attempt to close the Hollywood Grand. It has too much political interest, too many wealthy investors.”

  The whispers were getting louder. I plinked my tins into a noisy stack.

  “Prohibition agents will be looking for smaller, more vulnerable targets to put out of business. Targets like us.”

  “Let them,” I scoffed. We were a coven, after all. “Who cares?”

  “Our sister, Eleanor, will care.”

  My stack tumbled. “Eleanor!” Tins rolled and dropped onto the floor.

  The thing to know about my eldest half-sister, Eleanor, the really big thing, is she’s a warlock. I mean, I’m a warlock. I’ve summoned a demon. But Eleanor’s more like the Princess of Hell.

  If my career as bar manager dragged Eleanor into a fight with the Feds, the first sound would be a loud squeal of pain from the Federal government. The second would be the gentle murmur of my name….

  “That’s bad.” I chased the tins. “Really bad!”

  Priscilla sighed. “We cannot let that happen, Clara.”

  “No, ma’am.” My heart deflated. “I don’t suppose we can.” All my plans, all my grand schemes were going flatter than a bald tire in a nail factory.

  Without the bar to manage, I had nothing. No college, no travel, no film career. All those ideas had already received a firm and final no from Eleanor. A girl’s options tend to be somewhat limited when she’s fourth in line to be the next Princess of Hell. That’s why Priscilla, the third in line, had built herself a tomb of test tubes and copper coils.

  “I guess,” I said sadly, “I guess I’d better close the bar.”

  “Don’t be melodramatic,” Priscilla scolded.

  I kicked the worktable, scuffing my Mary Janes.

  “I know how much this opportunity means to you.” Priscilla tipped her mixture into a tin and wrote stomach powder on the lid. “I’m saying you must proceed with caution.”

  “Proceed?”

  “Avoid unnecessary risks. Don’t make mistakes.”

  “I won’t.” Could she suspect I’d stolen hellfire? Summoned a demon? But no, if so, she’d have charged in and taken over by now. “I really won’t!”

  “You’re nearly grown, Clara. You deserve this chance to be yourself. To find your path in life.”

  I threw my arms around my sister. “Thank you!”

  “One chance.” She hugged me. “I can’t do more.”

  “I know.”

  “If this goes badly, Eleanor will punish us both.”

  That stopped me. Eleanor liked a quiet life. That was why the Umbridges, with their paltry ghost magic, were permitted to run the town. The pranks I’d been caught pulling, as a girl, had met with harsh punishment, and this scheme—running the dance contest, changing the Fellowship’s saloon into a speakeasy while my eldest sisters were off in Florida—was no girlish prank.

  If all went well, if I had the new speakeasy running smoothly before Eleanor got back in September, she’d be forced to accept it. I had official permission to manage the bar. But if I caused trouble, if I brought the wrath of outsiders down on the coven, Eleanor would be livid. She might literally kill me, though it would cause her pain. And then she’d turn her wrath on Priscilla for letting me run wild.

  “I won’t let things turn out badly,” I told Priscilla solemnly. “I swear.”

  Something thumped loudly. I heard a clank of bottles, the groan of wood, and then a stack of brandy crates along the back wall wobbled and fell with an enormous, splintering crash.

  “I think,” Priscilla said evenly, “whomever you’ve got hidden back there had best come out.” She grasped my elbow and marched me through the lab. Boxes were everywhere, some open, some shut. More than a dozen had fallen, though there was surprisingly little glass or liquor on the floor. Beyond the crates, the coal-room door stood ajar. A strip of light shone through the coal chute onto the floor.

  Priscilla began turning that way.

  “Hi there!” Ruth stepped in front of her. “I’m Ruthie!”

  I held my breath. The Girl’s Guide says you can’t tell someone’s a genie unless you see them use magic. But still….

  Priscilla nodded. “How do you do.”

  “And you’ve met Mr. Beauregard, I’m sure.” Ruth gestured.

  A muscular god stepped from the shadows. Not the pale, vacant creature who’d been tending bar, not even the heart-rending icon of the screen, but the real Beau Beauregard, warm, sensitive, and far more beautiful than he’d ever been on film.

  “Madame, I beg your pardon.” He spoke with just a trace of French accent. “Your gin, your whiskey, they are such nectar, so délicieux. I begged your sister to reveal to me this holy shrine.”

  Beau talked. My mouth fell open. He smiled. He looked so human, so alive, now that he’d eaten brains.

  Beau raised Priscilla’s hand, turned it, and kissed her palm.

  “Oh, well, that’s quite all right,” she almost cooed. “The honor’s mine. It’s charming to hear your voice, Mr. Beauregard.”

  “Ah, oui. Down here, it is not necessary to act the silent publicity.” He waved at the spilled crates. “I do apologize. You will permit me to pay these damages.”

  “Oh, that’s nothing. No difficulty at all.” Priscilla gave me the eye. “Clara will handle it.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” I eyed Ruthie, in turn, who made a face and started stacking crates.

  Beau took Priscilla’s arm. “I see you favor the double vent,” he said, leading her toward a still. “I, myself, dabble in cognac. Perhaps you could advise….”

  “Say, listen,” Ruth hissed. “
Do you know these crates are empty?”

  “Empty?” I grabbed a broom and swept up glass, unable to take my eyes off Beau. “Don’t be ridiculous.” His voice, charisma, and grace were so much more than I’d imagined. More than I’d dreamed.

  “At least partly empty.” Ruth raised a lid.

  “They were all full last night.” I dumped glass in a can and filled a bucket at the sink.

  Priscilla led Beau to the highboy cabinet and began showing him her alchemy ingredients and herbs. She unlatched a hidden compartment, opened a tin and then, giggling of all things, passed it to Beau.

  The actor inhaled, clutched his heart in appreciation, and sighed.

  I mopped spilled brandy off of the floor. Ruth finished stacking crates.

  Something moaned in the coal room.

  Could that be wind? I cocked my head and heard voices arguing outside, against the background of a rumbling motor. A deep rumble, I thought, not Bernie’s car. Someone was in the alley.

  Priscilla shut the herb cabinet. Beau eased her toward the stairwell door.

  “Merci beaucoup, most gracious lady,” he said, bowing. “You are too kind.” He clasped her hand against his chest.

  Priscilla simpered. For one instant, my heart burned hot with jealous rage.

  “If you permit,” he told Priscilla, “I shall aid in the cleaning before I follow, non?” He bent and kissed her fingertips. “Au revoir?”

  “Bien sûr.” Priscilla floated into the landing. “Au revoir.”

  The door slid shut. We held our breaths, waiting to see if she’d come back.

  After a moment’s pause, Beau turned to me.

  “And that, ladies and gentlemen.” His feet rapped out a vaudeville shuffle. “Is how we wow the folks back home in Buffalo!”

  “Beau!” I raced over and threw my arms around his chest. “Beau you’re alive!”

  “Clara!” Beau spun me in a circle. He had the most beautiful blue-gray eyes.

  My heart thudded with happiness so hard it hurt my teeth.

  “Clara.” Beau dropped me. “You rotten louse!”

  “I’m not!” I cried. “It’s not my fault!”

  “You dragged me to this hellhole.” He stepped forward, raising one fist.